Jennifer Lane
A girl called Gracie. A town called Coongahoola - on the dark foreboding Bagooli River. Every small town has its secrets: good, bad, funny, sad - and sometimes terrifying. They're mythologised and whispered-about by town gossips and other grown-ups until something happens to snap the past into focus. And something always happens. Things get weird in Coongahoola when 'a sighting' of the Virgin Mary attracts hundreds of 'Believers', who set up camp on the river bank and try to win local souls. Things get scary in Coongahoola when the River Children - born nine months after the town's infamous River Picnic - are targeted by a vicious killer. Gracie Barrett, the savvy storyteller for her chaotic family - promiscuous dad, angry mum, twins Lucky and Grub, Elihah 'the River Child', and prayerful Grandma Bett - believes there's a connection between the weird and the scary. She is the voice for the kids who are taken, and for the lurking fear that locks down the New South Wales town and puts everyone under suspicion. Funny, kind, bullied and anguished, Gracie's young life spirals out of control when she discovers what no one else knows: the identity of the killer. Coongahoola is where hope and fear collide, where tender adolescence is confronted by death, where kindness is a glimmer of light in the dark.
